1860 Henry .44 Caliber Lever-Action Repeating Rifle. Clearing
the Way for the Winchester.

By now, everyone has heard of the
legendary Winchester rifles, and how they played a part in "Winning the
West." But before the Winchester, there was the 1860 Henry,
the first practical repeating rifle to enjoy success. The
Henry was an improvement on the former Volcanic Repeating
Rifle. Introduced just before the outbreak of the American
Civil War, the rifle's .44 caliber rimfire cartridge was considered
underpowered for most military use. However, there were
instances where the Henry was successfully deployed in combat by Union
infantrymen, and repelled attacks by a regiment armed with flintlock
muskets. The Henry was used mostly by advance raiding parties
or flank guards. Since the Union Army didn't officially adopt
the Henry for military use, many of them were paid for by soldiers
themselves. They believed--and rightly so--that the superior
speed advantage of the Henry would give them better odds in
combat. The first units produced for military use
(or private military sales) rolled out in 1862. Although
considered underpowered for combat, they were much faster to reload
than the old flintlocks and percussion weapons, which were still in
widespread use during the Civil War.

This was made possible by the new
lever-action loading system, coupled
with self-contained cartridges--another major breakthrough in firearms
technology. This allowed a vastly speedier reload than one
could ever hope to acheive with a flintlock. The lever action
system consisted of a tube magazine directly beneath the barrel, and
the action would chamber a new round in about a second, with the
cocking of the lever, ready to fire again. The self-contained
cartridges (still used today) were a major advantage over the
percussion weapons and flintlocks that were still in widespread
use. Before the self-contained rounds, the shooter was
required to load black powder and a separate lead bullet into the
chambers, and then manually prime the charge with either
percussion caps, or the pan on the flintlock assembly. The
Henry was loaded by simply feeding the cartridges into the magazine,
from the front end and cocking the lever after each shot, until the
magazine was empty. The octagonal barrel is another
distinguishing characteristic of the Henry rifle.

The revolutionary 1860
Henry Rifle was the first to successfully use the new rimfire
cartridges, a design of Daniel Wesson that was perfected by a brilliant
gunsmith/engineer Benjamin Tyler Henry, for use in his new lever action
rifle. The fully self-contained .44 caliber cartridges, along
with the fast lever action of the rifle would later prove to be a major
development that would shape the course of the future in firearms
production. Self-contained cartridges quickly overtook
flintlocks and percussion weapons after the Civil War. The
later development of the centerfire cartridge only accelerated this
development.

The Henry repeating
lever-action rifle saw most of its production
during the Civil War. An estimated 12-14,000 of the rifles
were produced between 1860 and 1866. Rather than fade away
like many other arms that were produced during that time, the Henry
name was absorbed into the Winchester Company. After 6 years
of production in the New Haven, Connecticut factory, an investor named
Oliver Winchester, who had a controlling interest in the New Haven Arms
Company bought it out. In 1866 it officially became the
Winchester Repeating Arms company. The advances made by BT
Henry went on to great heights with Winchester over the next 140
years. These rifles shaped the settlement of the West, made
their mark in Hollywood, and became the quintessential cowboy and
hunting rifle for big game. They are in widespread use, even
today. Beginning in 1964, amid a change in management,
Winchester underwent a long, downward slide, until the company was
finally closed altogether in 2006. Since that time, the name
has been taken up by other owners who still produce the Winchester
under a new license. Today, The Henry Repeating Arms Company
produces the Henry rifles in Brooklyn, NY, not far from its original
home in New Haven, Connecticut.